Police Use Hack of Encrypted Messaging App to Bust ‘Super-Cartel’ in Europe, Dubai

Encrypted phone manufacturers have been the target of authorities recently, including Phantom Secure, SKY Global, and Encrochat.

Europol authorities arrested 49 individuals in a massive drug sting that resulted in the seizure of 30 metric tons, or more than 66,138 pounds of cocaine using a 2021 hack of encrypted phone service SKY Global.

Authorities have detailed that six “high-value” targets were arrested in Dubai, two of whom were nationals of the country. The remaining suspects were nationals of France, Spain and the Netherlands.

Elsewhere, 10 suspects were arrested in Belgium, six in France, and 13 in Spain. Another 14 individuals had been arrested in the Netherlands in 2021 as part of the same investigation.

Authorities say the accused are a part of an international drug operation they described as a “super-cartel.” They say the organization controlled roughly a third of the cocaine trade in Europe.

“The scale of cocaine importation into Europe under the suspects' control and command was massive and over 30 [metric tons] of drugs were seized by law enforcement over the course of the investigations,” Europol said in a statement.

It is not clear if the 30 metric tons of cocaine seized includes the 17 metric tons that were seized in the Netherlands in 2021 or if this was an entirely new seizure of 30 metric tons.

One of the suspects arrested in Dubai was described as “an extremely big fish” by the AFP’s Europol sources.

The operation’s success hinged on authorities hacking SKY Global ECC, a secure end-to-end encryption messaging app that was used by the criminal organization. The organization trusted the app so much that police say they used it to send pictures of torture and the internal finances of the organization.

SKY Global was a company based in Canada that offered secure messaging for its users and modified phones to turn off their microphones, cameras, and GPS units. Authorities say they took over the SKY ECC server in 2021 and used that to infiltrate the criminal gangs.

SKY Global’s CEO Jean-François Eap was indicted for conspiracy to violate the RICO act. The US Department of Justice says the company’s services were “specifically designed to prevent law enforcement from actively monitoring the communications between members of transnational criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking and money laundering.”

Eap has called the accusations false and said his company was being targeted for protecting users’ “fundamental right to privacy.” At the time of his indictment, the FBI said there were more than 70,000 SKY Global phones in use worldwide. Eap has sued the federal government for seizing its internet domains. Both cases are ongoing and Eap has not yet been extradited from Canada to the United States for his trial.

The arrests come just weeks after Spanish authorities arrested 13 people in three cities after 1,539 pounds of cocaine was found in a shipping container in Valencia.